Seeking insightful perspectives on writing, dissertations, and projects in general.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Adding up incremental change

Following up on my past few days of talking about how one must push forward--even a little bit--on days when things aren't going well, when there seems to be no progress and when there seems to be no inspiration, I want to talk a little about perceptions of incremental change.

The analogy that pops into mind is growing up. As a child, of course, we grow rapidly; my friend was saying that his son grows something like a quarter of an inch each month. But as a child, we don't feel the impact of that change because it is incremental: each day we're slightly bigger. Even to a close outside observer the change isn't immediately obvious: if we see the change every day, we don't notice how those changes add up. But what happens if we don't see a child for a year or two? Obviously that child is much larger than before: the change is obvious and striking.

The same is true in our lives for many other things. Especially our writing progress. Especially our writing process when we're struggling through a rough patch. If we can stick with it, day to day, committing ourselves to do at least a little work each day, that little bit of work can really add up. It can add up in obvious ways--for example if we write 400 words each day (which takes an hour or less, depending on your writing ability), we have a book in half a year (yes, half a year is a long time, but that's my point). It can also add up in less obvious ways: it can impact how we think about the project and how we think about writing: by getting used to working regularly, and by creating a situation where we don't demand of ourselves immediate and obvious production, we can completely change how we interact with our writing process. Or at least I know that I have seen this kind of progress in my own life: I don't have the book (at least partly because I haven't been trying to write a book), but I can look back and see that I feel differently about my writing than I did last year, or the year before. I don't just feel different, I feel better. But that's the thing about sticking with it day to day.

Other analogies that match well: playing a musical instrument, or athletic endeavors. We have to stick with these on a regular basis. We start slow, and day to day, practice to practice, workout to workout, we may not notice much difference, but in the long run....

As a coach, using my knowledge of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and design theories and methods, I help scholars develop a writing practice that carries them through the difficulties of the writing process.

As an editor, I work to help writers express their ideas clearly, which sometimes calls for a high-level examination of content and structure, and other times for meticulous attention grammar and stylistic conventions.